Love Lessons: Retaining Your Dignity
by clagjanet
Summary: A sequel of sorts to "Braced Against the Pain". June 2016 update: I have decided to group some of my stories together under a theme of Love Lessons, which are family-centred tales as Lee finds out what "normal" life can be like.


Disclaimer: none of these characters belong to me; they belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to take them out for a spin and bit of light humour.

Author's Note: This is a story I originally played with for the FB Fanfic challenge to write about a conflict between a person and an object, but I couldn't make it work with only one person in the story. It's based on a real event and it wouldn't let me go as a fiction plotline. Besides, we always need more Jamie stories.

Set just far enough into the future that mystery marriage had to have come to an end, because surely they wouldn't have been able to keep up such a stupid secret.

 **Retaining your dignity**

Jamie was only half listening to the conversation Lee and Philip were having about the basketball game that night. He stared into space, appearing deep in thought but actually all he was thinking about was his stupid new retainer. He'd thought the braces were bad but he was beginning to think the retainer was worse. He was already so tired of food getting caught in it and making that slurping sound when he talked and then Philip teasing him about sounding like something out of Night of the Living Dead because of it. He poked at the plastic plate with his tongue, feeling the metal wires scraping back and forth against the outside of his teeth. Oh well, at least he only had another week of having to wear it during the day as well as at night.

He picked up his glass of iced tea and tilting his head back, drained it, realizing as he did so that Lee had asked him something. As he tilted his head back down to answer, he felt something slip in between the retainer and the roof of his mouth. One second later, his head almost exploded with pain. It was like a burning, but he knew he had nothing hot in his mouth. All he knew was that his head was clamped in throbbing bands of agony. He doubled over in agony and tried to pull his retainer out, thinking it was the source of the pain and then realized in a panic that it wouldn't move. He began to tug at it, getting more and more panicked but his fingers couldn't get a grip and the pain was getting worse and worse.

He could feel the tears begin and then suddenly he started to gasp for breath. What was causing this? He had never felt anything like this in his life.

He could hear someone calling his name and lifted his head enough to see through fogged-up glasses that Lee was staring at him and yelling his name. A wave of nausea from the pain hit him and he bolted from the table towards the bathroom.

"Jamie! Stop! Stop running!"

He could hear Lee yelling at him but he didn't care that he was angry with him – all he knew was the pain. He realized he wasn't going to make it to the bathroom and stopped in the middle of the kitchen, retching. He felt himself being swung around and found Lee directly in front of him staring him in the face, with the same look of panic in his green eyes that Jamie was feeling. "Oh my gosh," he thought "I'm actually dying and he knows it too." It was the closest he could get to a coherent thought before he began to retch again.

Lee hadn't let go of his arm and now he forced Jamie's face back up to look at him "Jamie! Can you breathe?" He stared at his stepfather, trying to process the question and then finally managed to drag in a shuddering lungful of air and nod at him. Some of the panic left Lee's face but Jamie could only take small comfort from that as the bands of pain overcame him again.

"Listen to me, Jamie. You've got to try and tell me what's wrong." Lee's hands were now braced on his shoulders and his eyes never left Jamie's. Jamie still couldn't speak – all he could do was continue to paw at the retainer trying to get it out of his mouth. Lee gave him a small shake and suddenly, whatever it was that was jammed between the retainer and the top of his mouth shifted and he was able to pull it out of his mouth. The retainer and whatever else that was shot across the kitchen floor, sliding until they hit the far wall. Almost immediately, most of the pain was gone, although his head still throbbed. He pressed his thumb against the roof of his mouth where the pain seemed the worst and was surprised to find it was freezing cold. He looked up at Lee who was still holding onto his upper arms and who had the weirdest look on his face. They stared at each other for a beat and then both turned their heads to look across the kitchen floor. At first Jamie couldn't figure out what he was looking at and then, when he figured it out, he began to laugh, hiccupping in between gasps.

"What the hell is that?" asked Lee, still staring across the kitchen at the retainer and the object lying in a puddle beside it.

"Ice cube" was all Jamie could manage to say. Lee looked at him as if he was insane.

"Ice cube?"

"It got stuck on top of my retainer and I couldn't get it out. Oh my gosh, this brain freeze still feels like it's gonna make me die."

"Brain freeze?" Lee didn't seem to be able to say much and Jamie thought he was not looking as cool as he usually did. In fact, he still looked a bit frightened.

"Yeah, like when you eat ice cream too fast and the top of your mouth gets cold, but this was a million times worse because the ice was burning and I couldn't get it out and…" he petered off as Lee slumped back against the counter and pulled Jamie into his arms.

"Brain freeze. My god, kid, I thought you were choking to death."

Jamie had stiffened a little bit at the unexpected embrace but then realized he could hear Lee's heart pounding in his chest, in matching rhythm to his own which was still racing. He was hit by a wave of emotion as he realized he'd thought he was going to die too and found himself hugging Lee back before starting to laugh again. "I would have liked you seeing you try to explain that to Mom." Lee made a strangled sound and lifted his arm to drag it across his face. Jamie looked up and was shocked - was Lee _crying_?

That was where Amanda found them a few seconds later when she walked back into the kitchen. Lee, still with one arm loosely around Jamie, laughing but wiping tears from his face with the other hand and Jamie leaning on his chest, also laughing and crying. She stopped dead and stared at them. "What did I miss?" She looked over at Philip who looked equally confused and he just shrugged his shoulders.

Lee looked up at her with an expression she couldn't decipher at all – she knew she'd never seen that look on his face before but couldn't imagine what it was. "Amanda, why did you never tell me about the sheer terror of being a parent?"

She didn't know what had happened but she could see that Lee was shaking, even though he tried to cover it up. She knew she'd get the full story later but for now settled for answering "Scarier than being in a nest of killers isn't it?" and watched as Lee nodded in agreement and pulled Jamie a little closer.


End file.
